Cookies on the ELEXON Portal

This website stores cookies on your computer, both as an essential part of the user experience and also to collect information to help us understand your use of the service and improve it. Use the links to the right to either view/change your cookie preferences, or simply dismiss this message and accept our default cookie settings. Note: A cookie will be stored on your computer to record these preferences.

Cookie Policy and Preferences

What Are Cookies?

This site, like many websites (and all websites that provide log in functionality) uses "cookies", which are small pieces of textual data that we ask your web browser to store on your computer, and then give back to us each time you visit a page. Essentially this allows us to know who you are as you move from page to page, and from visit to visit.

Are Cookies Bad?

From the description above, cookies may sound intrusive, but in fact each and every request that you make to a web server is treated in complete isolation, so storing a cookie is the only way that a site can know that you are the same user that you were on the last page that you accessed. Without them you wouldn't be able to log into a website, and pages would not be able to be customised to you in any way.

Most of the negative press surrounding cookies stems from advertising companies using cookies to track you between websites, and to collect the information that they know about you into a centralised profile which they can use to target advertising and even potentially sell your details to other companies. We do not share any of your information with any third parties (with the exception of Google Analytics for browsing patterns - which is not personally identifiable, and you can turn off below should you wish).

Why Are You Telling Me This?

The UK Information Commisssioner's Office (ICO) requires that we provide full disclosure about the cookie data that we store on your computer, and where such cookies are not essential to the operation of the site to allow you to opt out of their storage on your computer.

What Options Do I Have?

The table below shows the types of cookies that we store on your computer. Some of them are classed as essential to the operation of the site (so your only choice if you are not happy with them is not to use the site), but others are optional and you may opt out of them if you wish. The preferences that you choose below are specific to the computer that you are currently using.

Cookie Type

Description

Allowed

Google Analytics

We use a service called Google Analytics to collect information about the way that you use the site, including how long you stay on pages, which pages you visit, details of your operating system, browser and geographic location. Google stores a cookie on your computer on our behalf which is persistent, and while it does collect detailed information about your usage, it is not personally identifiable (and we ensure that we never read Google's cookie values, so we can't tie the data that they collect to the personally identifiable information that we have about you). You are able to opt out of this cookie by unchecking the checkbox to the right. If you do opt out, we will immediately delete all Google Analytics cookies from your computer.

PHP Session

When you visit the site (whether you are logged in or not), we have to initially carry out a lot of calculations to work out what you are/are not allowed to access in your current state. To preserve performance of the site, rather than carrying out all these calculations every time you load a page, we cache them in a web server "session", and store a cookie on your computer with the session ID. If we didn't do this, the performance of the site would not be able to be maintained, so we class this as essential to the site's operation. This cookie does not contain any personally identifiable information.

Essential

Login

When you choose to log in, we store an additional set of login cookie information on your computer to tell our back-end security systems who you are and to validate that you are logged in. The reason that we do this with a separate login cookie (rather than using the session cookie for example) is because each of your page views has to be verified against our back-end single sign on architecture, and because your session cookie is destroyed when you close your browser (so we wouldn't be able to remember you when you come back later).

Essential

Tree State

When you expand or contract the content tree in the sidebar, we use javascript to store these tree expansion states in a cookie so that the tree remains in your chosen state as you navigate from page to page. If you opt out, the tree will revert to its default state every time you load a new page, which we feel may affect your user experience, so we recommend that you allow this cookie type. This cookie does not contain any personally identifiable information.

Cookie Preference

If you choose to opt out of any cookie types, we will store a cookie on your computer to signify this. While it may seem counter-intuitive to store a cookie to specify that you don't want any cookies, this is the only way that we can know about your preference when you return to the site.

Your login session will normally be timed out after two hours of inactivity. Choosing "Remember Me" will extend this to 28 days of inactivity, so as long as you visit the site at least once every 28 days, you will remain logged in. Only use this option if you are on a private computer that others do not have access to.